All Things European: Citizenship and Identity in Search of Meaning
All Things European: Citizenship and Identity in Search of Meaning

Summary/Abstract: European citizenship has extended the reach of a number of citizenship rights beyond the nation-state, while the concept of a European identity is an effort at supporting the development of a collective identity for an emerging political community. The identity being developed is not the homogenous one of the nation-state, but one that relies on cultural diversity. Still, there seems to have been a recognition that the extension of ever-more rights to an ever-larger group of people is not enough to engender the loyalty hoped for. No political entity can function without legitimacy in the eyes of the individuals that belong to it; so that European citizenship needs to develop in both the area of rights and that of identity. An emerging European identity may help make European citizenship ’matter’, but cannot substitute for missing political allegiance.

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